Friday, April 11th, 2008
PeSA / ECMTA Best Practices “Improving Your eBay DSRs”
I realize I run the risk of turning this blog into a Marketplaces-only forum rather than an all-encompassing discussion hub for all things “Inc”, but I am joining Lorrie Norrington and the team down at the 2008 Spring eCommerce Summit in New Orleans later this month so I thought it would be a good idea for me to sit in on the PeSA / ECMTA Best Practices conference call yesterday afternoon. The topic of discussion was “Improving Your eBay DSR” and the call was hosted by Brandon Dupsky, managing director of eCommerce Markets for the E-Commerce Merchants Trade Association (ECMTA).
The call was interesting in that it didn’t focus on the perceived benefits or drawbacks to the Detailed Seller Rating (DSR) system, rather it focused on the challenges sellers face with DSRs and how to implement some best practices around that. It seemed to go beyond DSR 101 (one participant at the end of the call indicated that she found it one of the more worthwhile roundtable calls she had attended).
After Brandon provided a brief overview of what DSRs are and why they’re important he jumped into the meat of the presentation. He cited three key challenges that sellers face with DSRs:
1. Mixed messages from eBay. There is a message to buyers that states that 4.0 should be applied to an experience in which there was an “accurate” description; they were “satisfied” with communication; shipping was “quick” and S&H was “reasonable”. However, the message to the seller is that 4.0 means you can’t qualify for PowerSeller status; you don’t get good seller status; you could drop down into the bottom 1% in your category and receive seller restrictions.
2. A mixed usage of whole numbers and fractions with regard to scores. In other words, a buyer can only leave a 1, 2,3 4, or 5 feedback score and as a result, sellers are “being punished” with fractional scores of 4.0, 4.4, 4.6, 4.8.
3. Good DSR scores have less of an impact on sellers than bad DSR scores. A single 5-star DSR will not help the overall average as much as a single 1-star DSR will hurt the overall average.
The proceeding ways in which it was suggested sellers could ensure that they get the best DSRs possible all had an underlying theme. Educating the buyer with impeccable messaging and setting their expectations from the beginning seemed to be the biggest call to action to sellers (which echoed a Chatter Blog post back in February). Based on presentations and discussions I’ve seen and heard internally, that seems to be the call to action for the Marketplaces team too. Yes, the changes we’ve seen come out over the past few months are focused on providing the best overall experience for the buyer on eBay but it is the education and the ability to meet and beat the expectations of the buyer that will result in optimal DSRs.
There were a number of simple tricks and tools discussed on the call. For example, emphasizing 5-Star service in every step of communication to the buyer or potential buyer. Another was setting expectations and then beating them (whether it be regarding shipping cost, time or description of item).
The number one question that seemed to be asked throughout the presentation was “What are you doing to keep your customer happy?”
For those of you still on the fence about attending the conference later this month, the ECMTA has put together this handy-dandy Top 10 Reasons to attend. If you are heading down there, feel free to email me because I’d love to take the opportunity to meet as many people as I can in person.
Cheers,
RBH
Tagged: best practices, brandon+dupsky, chatter, chatter blog, dsr, ebay, ecmta, ecommerce, lorrie+norrington, marketplaces, pesa, rating, trade show
CrunchyPostingGoodnessOn 04.23.2008 at 8:42 am Said:
@ Davey
The comparison of when Coke “threw out” the old formula in lieu of New Coke is an excellent example of where eBay is going wrong.
People like new items, but they also crave choice and variety. eBay is throwing out the original eBay in favor of a shiny, newer one, but is still making the fatal mistake of upsetting their original customers (buyers and sellers).
What eBay should do is split the site in some fashion. One side that operates like eBay was originally meant to, and the other to operate like the “retail” experience they are striving for now. Let the users determine which split of the site they wish to participate in (both buyers and sellers).
This way eBay will retain their original core of small sellers and buyers who are searching specifically for unique items, and they can cater to professional sellers and those buyers who wish to have a more “retail” like experience.
Ebay Express was the wrong way to go for countless reasons. It was instituted half-baked and with countless errors and confusion. The best thing for eBay to do is create two separate sites - Ebay Original and Ebay Professional.
In addition, eBay needs to have different seller levels, limitations, fee schedules, and rules for each site, in order to more accurately reflect its users.
eBay can introduce all of the new things they want and see if they work as new sites or new items - without effecting the current formula.
Patricia 1On 04.23.2008 at 11:50 am Said:
“What eBay should do is split the site in some fashion. One side that operates like eBay was originally meant to, and the other to operate like the “retail” experience they are striving for now. Let the users determine which split of the site they wish to participate in (both buyers and sellers).”
Like Overstock? Seems ebay is bent on copycatting them or Amazon or a bit of both. To heck with being original and unique and building on THAT.
SandiOn 04.23.2008 at 11:53 am Said:
“and the other to operate like the “retail” experience they are striving for now”
Isn’t that ebay express?
JewelrySellerOn 04.23.2008 at 1:33 pm Said:
The ‘eBay formula’ works.
eBay is trying to change eBay USA and some European countries toward something else. But the developing countries responsible for current & future eBay revenue growth need the ‘classic eBay flea market’ business model.
Perhaps eBay management isn’t up to the task of keeping intact the ‘classic eBay’ and also launching a ‘new Coke (new eBay/WalMart/Amazon) eBay’ to appeal to a different market. Sort of like WalMart and Sam’s Club! Why not have both?
CrunchyPostingGoodnessOn 04.23.2008 at 3:18 pm Said:
@ Patricia
If it is eBay’s intention to mimic Amazon, then that is even more reason for them tho create different levels of sellers. Amazon has several levels, among them are Marketplace and Pro-Merchants.
Amazon makes a clear distinct between them when a buyer goes to review the shipping rates, return policies, and store fronts.
@ Sandi
As I explained above, Express was not fully though out, advertised, or explained to users fully. All eBay Express does is pull from the current auctions to display Buy It Now items with quick shipping methods. It is not a testimony to whether the seller is able to operate at a professional level, or just casual.
A while back on eBay’s SC forum, BrewsNews wrote an extensive post which explained very well the short falls with the creation of eBay Express. He worded it better than I ever could. I’ll try and see if I can post a link to that thread, so you can read it too.
Patricia 1On 04.23.2008 at 3:27 pm Said:
Crunchy - I understand that full well….the big BUT is they want to do it with shoddy automatic polcies and no customver service to speak of. How long would this type of operation last before all the good sellers are gone and they have nothing left but the bad sellers who will hang on as long as they can make a buck. Ebay will become just a cheap fake replica of Amazon.
CrunchyPostingGoodnessOn 04.23.2008 at 3:54 pm Said:
Patricia1, I couldn’t agree with you more. To copy a site like Amazon, eBay must do more than just copy the policies, it needs to institute the trust and customer support for its users necessary to pull it off.
Perhaps eBay will eventually figure out how to do that, but I agree, that eBay should not destroy the current marketplace in an attempt to discover the solution.
@ Sandi
Sorry, but it looks like the Brew’s post no longer exist on the SC forum. Perhaps he will point out some of the problems the next time he posts here. For the time being, here are some of the problems I have found with eBay Express:
1. Sellers can not require PayPal Confirmed Addresses only. From the sign-up page: “Ensure your PayPal account settings are set to ship to unconfirmed addresses or make sale-by-sale decisions (”Ask me for unconfirmed addresses”).
2. The shopping cart function works intermittently at best.
3. Buyers do not understand exactly what Express is - is it part of eBay, the same as eBay????
4. Sellers do not fully understand eBay Express. Most complain that it is too confusing, too buggy, there is no support, it is hard to list stuff there, etc…
For all of the above reasons, a lot of sellers, including myself, have opted out of having items show up in eBay Express. These are just a few reasons. Brew’s had many more. I’m sorry to see that thread is now gone. 
JewelrySellerOn 04.23.2008 at 4:00 pm Said:
Donahoe comes from WalMart.
WalMart’s policies are to do as little as necessary to support the consumer buyers, if the cost comes out of WalMart’s pockets.
WalMart’s policies are to do as much as possible to support consumer buyers if the cost comes out of the Vendors pockets.
‘Satisfied Buyers are eBay’s #1 Priority’ (quote) - not buyers and sellers, not any mention of ‘fairness’, nor any relationship between eBay and the Sellers.
To WalMart, sellers/vendors are a commodity - to be dictated to, expendible with a seemingly never-ending supply of more vendors where those came from.
To the new eBay, sellers aren’t even on eBay’s new radar!
SandiOn 04.23.2008 at 4:26 pm Said:
@CrunchyPostingGoodness
I know express is poorly implemented. That’s why I said in another post it would be nice if ebay just once had something worked 100% correctly before moving on to something else.
I used express as the example to the post. I think retail pure and simple is what ebay wants to be, no small sellers, major sellers who had to do all the customer service themselves without every having to bother ebay. That express was the idea to what they are doing now, express just failed and they did not bother to find out why.
Ebay hasn’t managed to implement anything correctly in quite a while; express is just one item on that list.
I own a programming company, when we create something new, we do it one step at a time, once all the kinks are out of step 1, we had step 2, etc, etc. Then when we think it’s perfect (but still on our development servers) we ask the very people who will have to use it to test it for us, even down to the verbiage we have used (just had an example today were we used the term design, when admin made better sense to the end users - our beta testers tell us these things, we fix).
Then after the beta testers have given us their input and 90% rate it ready to go live, we move it over to the public servers and usually with few if any issues.
Because ebay is cheap, arrogant or both, they never do that, so they have complex code riddled with errors that are almost impossible to fix quickly because they do not know which particular code is flawed.
They have user unfriendly interface because geeks like myself designed it using terms unique to our world and making broad assumptions the avg user will think like us - not true.
I use my husband as a tester for everything, he hates using the computer, although brilliant, he is a total computer moron. He is perfect for my purposes. If he doesn’t throw the mouse, I know we have it right.
Express is just another example of how ebay totally missed the mark on every count.
Patricia 1On 04.23.2008 at 4:31 pm Said:
Well, then the one-sidedness will be their undoing. Unfortunately, we’ll all be forced to leave before they discover it ain’t gonna work in this setting. As for Walmart - I don’t know if they take it out of a vendor’s hide but I do know their return policy is excellent and I doubt if any of their vendors are only occasional or small sellers. If they want to be like Amazon, their policy of immediately stepping into a situation and refunding or reimbursing a customer is excellent. I see no such customer service in place on Ebay and I’m not likely to either because it would cost them hands-on sweat equity and they seem to want to do everything with cut and dried automatic policies. I can’t see that working. Guess I’m too old to believe in fairy tales LOL
I’ll say it again…I fail to see where any of these new policies will bring in one new buyer or convince one old buyer to return! Nothing I have seen so far is of benefit to anyone not even ebay. In fact, as they continue on this course my listings are dwindling. I have 5 listings right now - down from my normal 50+, my ebay store has been closed for months and I’m listing on 5 other sites at present besides my website. This is what the new policies are doing for ebay. Since best match became default, I sure am not profiting - though I’m one of those “good sellers” who should be up in the listings. You can hardly find a seller who isn’t diversified elsewhere these days. In effect sellers are showing ebay the same lack of loyalty and respect they are getting!
oakteakOn 04.23.2008 at 5:16 pm Said:
Everyone mentions that eBay wants major sellers and wants retail. I keep thinking, “why would a major retail seller need eBay? They would have the means and expertise to set up their own site and manage it as well. Why would they want to line someone else’s pockets to do what they can do themselves.”
Ebay just isn’t necessary in a situation like that. Why they would want to pursue it is beyond me.
The whole premise of eBay was set up to take care of sellers who did not have the means or expertise to manage their own site. That’s what they need eBay for.
Plus major retail sellers would be dictating terms like you wouldn’t believe. They would not put up with a lot of nonsense and 21 day holds on their money and other silly things. Nor would they care very much about feedback.
Something is very wrong with that scenario.
SandiOn 04.23.2008 at 5:42 pm Said:
@oakteak
I suspect what this is all heading to is the most profitable powersellers merged with the retailers from shopping.com. ebay already includes shopping.com merchants to express.
Last month when the shopping.com listings showed up on ebay and we were told multiple reasons, was probably the signs of what is to come.
ebay probably sent one of its “worded to get the answers we want” to their shopping.com merchants and came to the conclusion they would pay ebay more money to be on all of ebay.com
But you are right about one thing, I would never in a million years come to ebay to buy something from a major retailer. I would simply do direct.
I suspect ebay realizes they have real issues regarding their customer service and that is really the biggest buyer angst. Instead of expending their monies, they thought “wait, we can bring in a new set of sellers who have no idea we offer zero support and let them take care of the buyers for a while.”
They have an arogant attitude towards sellers as if we should be beholding to them, but they understand buyers can’t do that - so they need to come up with the illusion that buyers are somehow better off.
Reality, it’s ebay that needs radical changes, not sellers - the scams are not coming from the “real sellers”.
We can report all day - but that’s not OUR job - that’s ebay’s.
They claim to be only a venue, well when I go to a concert, the VENUE is standing at the door making sure only those who should be are there, they have security to make sure those who misbehave are escorted out - and another ticket isn’t going to let them in.
There is no expectation of the crowd providing crowd control.
implogOn 04.23.2008 at 5:51 pm Said:
@ Jeweleryseller
Are you sure that Donahoe is from Wal-Mart?
The CTO (Chief Technology Officer) is from the Wal-Mart.
My understanding of this tragically flawed mess is that Strip Mall John and Ms. Whitman are from the Boston consulting firm Bain where they were paid well to muck around in businesses for months, note perceived problems, pump out paper, make presentations suggesting change then disappear aftermath be damned.
Whitman arrived at eBay when the site was rocketing skyward on its own cold fusion. She made changes, many of them silly some just plain silly. Ebay users objected but everyone was making money.
Bain was a part of how Whitman ran eBay. She said on the Bain alumni page while heading eBay;
“I use the Bain tool kit to frame strategy at eBay, every day.”
Donahoe continues the mucking around making changes Bain appproach but as our dear Uncle Griff said in another thread on this blog, “Times have changed.” Ebay has slowed dramatically since the Whitman gilded age. Donahoe has to really produce and can’t hide behind giddy investors and virgins on toast.
Add to this Donahoe’s slavish worship of business guru Clay Christensen who writes of “disruptive innovation” as a way to the top of the corporate heap. Sad thing is, Christensen wrote about “disruptive innovation” in manufacturing processes not in technological processes and said on September 27, 2007.
“Even though people think I’m an expert at technological innovation, my own instinct for technology was frozen in place in 1982.”
So we have Donahoe, a Bain muckerarounder at the top of eBay being advised by a fad business consultant who is technologically in the 80’s and an eBay headquarters in San Jose full of sycophantic employees more concerned with career and politics, mortgage and car payment than the eBay rabbit hole in which they all descend, disrupting innovatively all the way down.
Such a sweet sweet Harvard Case Study.
CrunchyPostingGoodnessOn 04.23.2008 at 5:55 pm Said:
@ Sandi
“I use my husband as a tester for everything, he hates using the computer, although brilliant, he is a total computer moron. He is perfect for my purposes. If he doesn’t throw the mouse, I know we have it right.”
LOL! I love that! It brought a smile to my face - just the image of it. 
Patricia 1On 04.23.2008 at 5:57 pm Said:
““Times have changed.” Ebay has slowed dramatically since the Whitman gilded age”
You squeeze your customers for money, kick em around and give them no respect or customer service and this is what happens….quite common in most businesses. I’m not so sure that ebay wouldn’t have done a whale of a lot better without Whitman.
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